Synopsis
This commentary on the discovery of the atom's constituents provides an historical account of key events in the physics of the twentieth century that led to the discoveries of the electron, proton and neutron. Steven Weinberg introduces the fundamentals of classical physics that played crucial roles in these discoveries. Connections are shown throughout the book between the historic discoveries of subatomic particles and contemporary research at the frontiers of physics, including the most current discoveries of new elementary particles. Steven Weinberg was Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard before moving to The University of Texas at Austin, where he founded its Theory Group. At Texas he holds the Josey Regental Chair of Science and is a member of the Physics and Astronomy Departments. His research has spanned a broad range of topics in quantum field theory, elementary particle physics, and cosmology, and has been honored with numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics, the National Medal of Science, the Heinemann Prize in Mathematical Physics, the Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute, the Madison Medal of Princeton University, and the Oppenheimer Prize. In addition to the well-known treatise, Gravitation and Cosmololgy, he has written several books for general readers, including the prize-winning The First Three Minutes (now translated into 22 foreign languages), and most recently Dreams of a Final Theory (Pantheon Books, 1993). He has also written a textbook The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol.I, Vol. II, and Vol. III (Cambridge).
Review
From reviews of the first edition: 'Weinberg ... is no stranger to explaining abstruse science in a clear and engaging fashion to the general public, which is precisely what he does here. The building blocks of matter - from electrons all the way down to muons, pions, hadrons, and the charmed quark - become, in his hands, so much intellectual putty.' The Boston Globe
'One cannot fail to be touched by it.' New Scientist
'It is a happy fact that some of the greatest scientists have been skilled expositors of their subject for nonscientific audiences. Einstein, Eddington, and Feynman come to mind. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Laureate and brilliantly contemporary theorist, belongs in this company ... It is ideally suited to inspire a next generation of physicists.' American Journal of Physics
'A beautiful example of a new approach with which the nonscientist can attain literacy in physics.' Physics Today
'Weinberg takes the reader through a brief history of electric forces from Coulomb to Faraday, enabling him to calculate the deflection from first principles. This is a remarkably painless and successful way to teach the basic ideas of physics ... The book, with its splendid photographs ... is authentically Weinberg - very much reminiscent of his earlier brilliant exposition The First Three Minutes.' The Times
'It succeeds not only in presenting many of the important results of modern and classical physics but also in giving a flavor of how physics was done in the19th and 20th centuries.' Science
'A gem ... what it provides is a lively, personal and authoritative account of the way scientists found out about matter ... it is a very good read, combining lively informal syntheses of basic physics with solid quantitative science ...'. Astronomy & Geophysics
'This excellent book can be warmly recommended to the general reader.' Contemporary Physics
'I have been an admirer of this book since its first edition 20 years ago, and have recommended it on many courses for the general public, where people might be making their first encounter not only with particle physics but with physics itself ... I'm pleased the book is back in print and shall certainly continue to recommend it.' CERN Courier
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